The newest Google experiment lasted surprisingly short, being retracted just 24 hours after the release.
In an attempt to pay tribute to the Apple technology, and especially to the Mac OS X graphic interface, the search engine launched a version similar in design to the graphical interface Mac OS. However Google X will not remain in users' memories, since it was only available for one single day.
Programmer Chikai Ohazama, Google employee, authored the project and detailed his work in a personal blog.
The „fancy" version of the search engine was posted on the Google testing site, and provided an alternative interface for accessing Google services. The alternative implied pressing dynamic icons changing size and colors
whenever the mouse cursor got over them (just like in the Dock system of Mac OS X)
However, starting on Wednesday evening, the test page became unavailable. The design included a set of icons, each representing links to Google services. The Dock system of Mac implied the same growing size of icons located in the lower side of the screen when the mouse cursor got over them.
Google even thought of paying homage to Mac in a very original fashion: „Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you".
However, since Apple copyrighted the „Genie" effect in Dock, the online search engine was quite fast in taking back the original „homage" for fear they might be sued for copyright violation; representatives of both sides refused to make any comments.
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